In this fifth post in my series on first-century CE memories of the Maccabean revolt, I want to step back and (a) consider ways in which the Hasmoneans commemorated the Maccabean revolt while they were in power in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, and (b) begin to explore the extent of their popularity after the Roman takeover in 63 BCE.
During the second and first centuries BCE, the Hasmoneans had every reason to perpetuate memories of the Maccabean revolt because it helped them consolidate and legitimate their own rule. 1 Maccabees and possibly 2 Maccabees tell us what Hasmonean propaganda looked like while the Hasmoneans were in power.[1] The Hasmonean-inspired festival of Hanukkah is the most obvious example, but there are others. Albert Baumgarten has suggested that the annual half-shekel temple tax was a Hasmonean innovation introduced to “to reinforce the legitimacy of their rule.”[2] Eyal Regev argues against the consensus that the rise of pilgrimage to the Jerusalem temple originated before Herod’s Temple, in the Hasmonean era.[3] Even if the Hasmonean origins of these practices were eventually lost, the fact that a temple tax caught on in the Hasmonean period speaks to the success of the Hasmoneans in gaining popular support not only in the land of Israel but also in the Diaspora.
The Hasmoneans appear to have remained popular through the end of the first century BCE:
- Josephus mentions three Hasmonean revolts between 57-55 BCE in the immediate aftermath of the Roman general Pompey’s conquest of Jerusalem in 63 BCE (War 1.160-178; A.J. 14.82-100).
- Between 40-37 BCE, the Hasmonean Mattathias Antigonus controlled Jerusalem with the support of the Parthians (War 1.248-357).
- About two years later, Herod the Great, now installed as king of Judaea by the Romans, had his Hasmonean brother-in-law, Aristobulus III, drowned because the people responded so positively to the return of a Hasmonean to the high priesthood (War 1.437).
- There followed the execution of the Hasmonean former high priest, Hyrcanus II, whom Herod disliked because the throne “belonged to him by right” (War 1.434).
- Herod murdered his Hasmonean wife, Mariamme, a year later in 29 BCE (War 1.441-444).
- In 7 or 6 BCE, shortly before his own death, Herod finally executed his sons by Mariamme, who were still considered Hasmonean nobility (see War 1.445, 550-1).
- In 3 BCE, within a year of Herod the Great’s death, a Hasmonean pretender appeared in Rome, claiming to be Mariamme’s son, Alexander, and, therefore, both the legitimate heir to Herod’s throne and the one who would carry forward the Hasmonean line.[4]
[1] Unlike 1 Maccabees, overt support for the Hasmonean regime is absent from 2 Maccabees; the book stresses God's deliverance of the people much more than the human agency of Judas and his brothers. But religious and political motivations may coincide. Since the final form of the book appends letters encouraging the celebration of Hanukkah to “the story of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers” (2:19), both the book and the festival it commends may have functioned to encourage support for the Hasmonean dynasty. See Daniel R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, CEJL (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 14, 37.
[2] Albert I. Baumgarten, “Invented Traditions of the Maccabean Era,” in Geschichte - Tradition - Reflexion: Festschrift Für Martin Hengel Zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Hubert Cancik, Hermann Lichtenberger, and Peter Schäfer, vol. 1 of (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1996), 197–210, here 199–202 and 201.
[3] See Eyal Regev, The Hasmoneans: Ideology, Archaeology, Identity, JAJSup 10 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013). Unfortunately, Regev does not address memories of the Hasmoneans in the later Second Temple period.
[4] Unlike War 2.101-110, the version of the story in Antiquities 17.324-338 emphasizes the false Alexander’s connection to the Hasmonean line through Mariamme. See especially A.J. 17.330, 335 and the discussion in William Reuben Farmer, “Judas, Simon and Athronges,” New Testament Studies 4.2 (1958): 148; Daniel R. Schwartz, Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea, TSAJ 23 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990), 43; HT: Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 1B: Judean War 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 67 n. 623.
Other posts in this series:
Part 1: First-Century Memories of the Maccabees -- A Footnote with Footnotes
Part 2: First-Century Memories of the Maccabees Part 2: The Origins of Hanukkah
Part 3: First-Century Memories of the Maccabees Part 3: Hanukkah in the First Century
Part 4: Memories of the Maccabees in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Part 6: The Case of the Disappearing First-Century Hasmoneans
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